The love of baseball demands an appreciation of statistics. Statistics are used, like no other sport, to manage and track the performance of a team and its players.

GMs like Billy Beane and Theo Epstein are constantly experimenting with new mathematical algorithms that will improve their teams yield come draft day.

Managers, the actuaries of the baseball profession, measure the time that opposing pitchers take to deliver a baseball in an attempt to quantify the chances of a stolen base, generate a lineup card heavy on lefty batters (who have a slight historical advantage) if facing righty pitchers and vice versa, position fielders based on probabilities that hitters hit to certain portions of the field, etc.

And baseball card collectors of all ages spend hours absorbing the lifetime or season stats on each player's card.

It is an obsession.

And to feed the obsession that I'm certain is eating at each of you, here is a compilation of stats from all of the BO games. My wife thinks I've completely lost it and can't understand why I'd rather compile these nifty tables than clean toilets and fold laundry. I did it because I was curious and thought others would be as well. If there are other stats you'd like to see, let me know (derkommissar@baseballodyssey.org) and I will see what I can do. At any rate, here you are. These stats are good through BO '08.

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Game Results

Root root root for the home team - A home field advantage is not immediately apparent on the Odyssey of Baseball. Home teams have only managed to win 15 of the 36 games we have chanced to see.

The Cubs and Devil Rays and Royals and now The Twins !!?? - Yep, these are the elite teams that have the most BO wins. And the Twins are undefeated!!! I'm not going to offer up that 2 of the Devil Rays wins came at the expense of the beloved Red Sox or that it happened at Fenway.

Individual Stats

This is more of a batting category given the lack of repeaters on the mound. However, from a pitching perspective, it is interesting that Latroy Hawkins has 2 saves, one with the Cubs and the other with the Twins.

So, here are YOUR Baseball Odyssey Batting Leaders (batting average requires a minimum of 10 at bats):

Now, let's just say for the sake of argument that the BO had sponsored a "Fantasy" competition in every past odysseys (not just those after and including 2004) --And let's also say for the sake of simplicity that the measure of total bases only included hits and walks and not errors, fielder's choices and hit by pitches as has been used since 2004 (didn't collect or was unwilling to tabulate for each of the previous games) -- I wonder what the results of the Fantasy poll would be for each of the previous years. Well, here ya go:

And let's further postulate that people were interested in the grand total Baseball Odyssey Fantasy score. Well, here you are:

Team Stats

Now let's see what team dominates in batting average and era:

Yep, that's some pretty interesting info. Nothing there that will cure the common cold or put a man on Mars but interesting nonetheless.